Process Flow Diagram (PFD):

A process flow diagram is a graphical tool most commonly used by business process
management professionals (BPM) and chemical engineers. PFD helps to understand
the process, provide quality control,
and increase efficiency. It is used to get a top-down understanding of how different
types of equipment and chemicals work in the industrial plant. It maps various tasks
and shows what repeatable tasks you may need to perform to achieve a specific goal.
It is a type of flow chart that is utilized in chemical engineering and process
engineering. A process flow diagram illustrates the equipment and the flow of
chemicals included in the process. The PFD only shows
major equipment such as pumps, vessels, columns, heaters, turbines, etc. at an
industrial plant. However, it does not show minor details or components like
designations, flow instruments, pipe properties, and piping details (drain lines, control
loops, bypass lines)

Differences between PFD and P&ID:

A PFD is a simplified version of Piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&ID). In
contrast, P&IDs provide more details, which includes instrumentation details (flow
instruments, temperature, pressure, pressure
safety valves, meters and control valves), pipe routing conditions (minimum distance,
slope, free flow, etc.), and piping details (size, specifications, service, insulation,
rating). Furthermore, to understand P&IDs, you will need a legend sheet which is
usually given by a P&ID developer. The legend sheet has all the information like
symbols, terminology, etc., which is also called “Flow sheets.
Symbol Library for Process& id Diagrams:
Pumps and Turbine P&ID Symbols: The symbols for various types of rotary
equipment such as a centrifugal pump, vacuum pump, and also positive displacement
pumps such as gear and screw types. The last two symbols are of vertical pump and
turbine.
P&ID Symbols for Compressor:

The symbols for the compressor, such as reciprocating, centrifugal, rotary,

liquid ring, and turbine-driven, are shown below.
Heat Exchanger P&ID symbol:
These are the symbols for the heat exchanger. On the drawing, you can see both types
of symbols are used the one on the right-hand side are more frequent than the one on
the left-hand side.
Symbols for Static Equipment and Distillation column:

Static equipment is straightforward. Vessel, drum, tanks, and furnace. Here you can
see the symbols for dome roof tank, fixed roof tank, and internal floating roof tank. In
case the tank is only a floating roof, then there will be no roof on this symbol.

Two types of towers are shown here, one with column internal and the other without
internals. Different types of the internals are used in the column, and different
symbols are used. Here in the distillation tower, you can see the different types of
internal, such as mist mat, pipe distributor, liquid spray distributor, vortex breaker,
baffle plate, packing bed, and some other types of trays.
Line Symbols for PFD and P&ID: The below image shows various lines and
connections used on PFD and P&ID. Main process lines are shown as dark black
lines, whereas minor lines are shown as thin black lines. You can also see the symbols
for pneumatic, hydraulic, and capillary lines. Electric signals are shown as a dotted
line, and Electromagnetic signals are shown as a wave on a solid line.

P&ID Symbols for Piping Valves: This is the trickiest part of reading P&ID
and PFD. Here you can see the various types of valve symbols. If you remember that I
have mentioned that P&ID symbols change from company to company, valves
symbols are the one that changes most of the time. So, if you are moving from one
company to another, don’t rely on your memory and refer to the lead sheets for
symbols. Lead sheets are the one that contains all the project or plant-specific
symbols.
Symbols for instruments: Now back to our symbols. Here you can see the
various instrument bubble. In a process plant, more than 90 percent of instruments
measured either pressure, temperature, flow, or level. You can see the small table on
the side, which shows the first letter of the instrument. Now the function of these
instruments is either to indicate, record, control or transmit the measured value.